International Day of Women and Girls in Science
Today marked the 5th annual International Day of Women and Girls in Science. We, in the U.S. are still losing the battle to get more girls and women into science. There have been some positive notes, legislation that passed last year may help, but overall, women are not equally represented in science. Strange, since the first step in solving most design challenges is empathy. If women are not equally represented in the sciences, how can we expect the same level of empathy to guide the design process? Check out the video below and a couple of links to share. From the UN, this link, from Forbes magazine- this linkwww.womeninscienceday.org/, and from Women in Science Day, this link. Or follow some of the great links with this hashtag, #WomenInScienceDay.
One way to get more girls into STEM fields is to introduce it early. This is a FREE course from Engineering is Elementary. The PDF link for the syllabus is here.
More Black History Month Links
Rob Morrill has been making a series of lithophanes to celebrate Black History Month, sharing his results on Twitter and his instructables online, as well as the Thingiverse files. These are pretty amazing. I've tried printing them a couple of times, not terribly successful, yet. However, Ken, the infamous art teacher, gave me some great tips to try to improve them tomorrow. I'm still at the copying stage- have not played with codeblocks yet.
Ideas to Share
Before I share all of the great links from TCEA, a couple of others that caught my eye this past week.
The SheetsCon 2020 free online conference is coming up in March (11th and 12th). This is a 2 day conference to help you learn more than you have ever imagined about using Google Sheets. They have some great speakers lined up. This will range from super practical, you can pick this up and use it in your classwork tomorrow, to super geeky, you, or at least I, watch and wonder what the heck that one was...
Resources from TCEA from Wanda Terral
I embedded Wanda's Wakelet below, but what got me really interested in checking out the presentations from TCEA was Wanda's Data Dashboard presentation. This is something I want to learn more about. Enjoy all of Wanda's links, as well as Miguel's. I didn't embed all of Eric Curts' links, but here you go.
Resources from TCEA from Miguel Guhlin
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When I saw this article last week, it made me laugh at first, but then got me thinking... how many more powerpoint presentations will I have to sit through? You know the ones where the presenter apologizes in advance that you can't read the text on the slide, or god forbid, starts reading each slide to you. I remember showing Death by PowerPoint to students more than a decade ago. Here's the article- so you can laugh/cry...It's 2020. Why Are You Still Using PowerPoint? Don't miss clicking on the link to give you ideas of what you can do: Do This Instead.
New ways to capture and share learning seem to pop up on a daily basis, but these two tools are not the new kids on the block. Both Screencastify and Book Creator have been around for a while now and both keep on making more and more improvements. When I saw the tweet below and a blog post by Richard Byrne, it reminded that I need to go back and give Screencastify another look. Take a look for yourself here.
Embedded below is a Book Creator book with 50 Ways to use Book Creator in your classroom. This tool is easy to use, and if you happen to run into any problem, you know that you will get a quick, helpful response back. Just this week they announced some great accessibility changes too.Here's a great post to learn more about all the wonderful new features- 230+ accessibility improvements added to Book Creator.
This is a long one- but it show you all kinds of great ways to use Book Creator in Special Ed
UDL
You don't have to be a special educator to learn more about UDL. This is a Don Johnston webinar from last week with Hillary Goldthwaite-Fowles, who can help dispel some of the myths around UDL.
Ideas to Share
Different WorldsIt's often hard to talk about world issues with students. We all come to school with different backstories, different issues that we have had to deal with in life. As an educator no one wants to make a student feel vulnerable, or uncomfortable. So, how do you talk with kids about first world problems vs the rest of the world problems? Or do you agree with Patrick Gothman that this sort of thinking is divisive and we should stop saying, "first-world"? How do you address the social inequities that we deal with in the US and compare/contrast them to what others face on a daily basis? The video below is made of combined images from artist Uğur Gallenkuş. You can read more about the images here. Coming soon...GameBender By this time tomorrow, we will all know what this magical new product is, but so far Jay Silver is just sending out teasers. For those of you who have loved using MakeyMakey in the classroom, Jay is one of the inventors. Here's a short blurb from a longer EdSurge article. "According to a project summary from the National Science Foundation, which has given Gamebender $1 million to pilot its wares in museums and schools, the product “is composed of a projection system that allows real-time programmable interactions between everyday and virtual objects without a computer screen.” According to Andrew Sliwinski, Co-director of Scratch, “GameBender will bring the power and magic of coding to kids in a totally new way." CopyRight WoesMy Twitter feed seems to be filling up recently with warnings about copyright violations after a school district in Houston got sued- and lost- big time, to the tune of $9.2 MILLION! I know that some teachers are pretty casual about copyright, using the educational "fair use" clause as a reason not to follow the rules. Back when I taught a grade 9 computer class, one assignment was to create a page for a field guide, in conjunction with a trip to the Everglades. The kids were thrilled to see so many hits on their work, over 4000 for one year's version. I explained to them that that meant that any copyright violation was seen by 4000 lawyers. Fair Use is used in a court room- you do not want to go there. Please review the basic copyright rules! You may be surprised that some of the things you take for granted as OK, really aren't. Check out Richard Byrne's blog post about this here, or watch the video of his webinar with Dr. Beth Holland below.Copyright for Teachers. #InnovatingPlay - #iplay019 Creating a Global Play BoxWhen I saw this slide deck from the #InnovatingPlay, Creating a Global Play Box, I knew that many other teachers would love to see this resource. Jessica and Christine's website/blog posts and twitter chats simply contain a wealth of resources that they have created or have been shared through their PLN. So, check out the slidedeck here- Global Play Box. When you have time to spare and you are looking for amazing ideas for Early Childhood or Elementary curricula, just spend the day following the links on their blog https://www.innovatingplay.world/ STEM Lab ChallengesKarly Moura has done it again! She has created and shared an excellent collection of STEM challenge cards and badges. She gives links to all the instructions and has each task clearly defined. I don't have exactly the same array of STEM stuff that Karly has, but now that I have this slidedeck to use as a template, perhaps I can go through and decide to make some microbit or edison challenge cards. It would be a challenge to make some Cubetto or BeeBot cards- using mostly graphics for the non-readers. As always, Karly makes me think of new ways to use materials and to organize lessons, and provides ideas for assessment. Ideas to Share
Math with Bad Drawings
8 Things Every School Must Do To Prepare For The 4th Industrial Revolution
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AuthorMaureen Tumenas Archives
June 2021
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